Dear Families,
If you are anything like me you have been planning your life around the daily Press conferences and announcements from
the Premier. Whilst we had hoped to be able to open sooner than what is foreshadowed, we understand that community safety is the key consideration to all of these decisions.
Outdoor Gymnastics
Under the Roadmap to reopening, personal training with up to two participants per trainer is permitted outdoors from September 28. This means we will be rolling up our floor mats, carrying our beams and bars into the carpark and setting up outside! The carpark will be matted and fenced off with crowd control fences to keep the kids safe and our EKGA Awesome coaches will be there live and in the flesh to Teach Gymnastics and make it Fun! Of course, everything comes with rules and restrictions, so please read carefully over the following information.
Who
During this phase, people are only permitted to travel within 5kms of our homes. This means if you live with 5kms of EKGA (put our address into this link to check) your child will be permitted to attend training outside at EKGA. So whether you have a crazy three-year-old you want us to wear out, a serious senior gymnast wanting to get back to training (or anything in between)– we can cater for them all.
We will continue to provide our great value online program offerings during this time. For families living further than 5km from EKGA, the online programs will be your only option at this time.
What
We won’t have the whole gym outside each day and there are limitations with certain pieces of equipment that we won’t have the capacity to set up outdoors. However, we will be able to have: Beams, Bars, P-Bars, Mini Tramps, Spring Boards, Crash mats, Vault, Strip mats, Air floor, Wedges, Boxes, Mushrooms, Pommels, Climbing frames and lots more! The lesson plans will be tailored to make the most out of the equipment we have available and the limited time we have. Therefore we will still be running conditioning, flexibility and handstand training online.
Keeping the kids SAFE
The carpark will be fenced off with crowd control fences to keep the kids contained. This will keep the kids in and everyone else out! The concrete slab of the carpark is exactly the same as the concrete slab inside the gym. We have just covered the inside with mats and carpet tiles. We will do the same outside. The landing surfaces and surrounding “overflow” areas will be carefully matted with strip mats, scatter mats and crash mats. Coaches will conduct regular equipment safety checks to ensure the equipment is safe and stable.
As training will be outdoors members of the general public walking past will be able to observe training from behind the fence. Gymnasts are encouraged to dress accordingly. We would encourage the girls to wear leggings / shorts over their leotards if this makes them feel more comfortable about being out in the open.
Covid SAFE
With our “Semi-private” 2:1 training sessions we will be setting up two sets of equipment. I.e. two beams, two mushrooms, two springboards, two wedges etc. This means your child will be the only child using that piece of equipment for the entire session. The other child will have their own set and will be physically distanced the whole time. There will be no shared equipment and hygiene will play a big part in each session.
Coaches will maintain physical distance as much as possible and will only touch gymnasts for safety reasons. Coaches will be wearing masks. Gymnasts may choose to wear a mask. Gymnasts and coaches will be temperature checked and symptom screened on arrival. Families will be asked to keep their child home if anyone in the household has cold or flu symptoms or is awaiting results of a Covid test.
When
Outdoor training will begin from Monday the 28th of September and we plan to run it until Sunday the 25th of October. We will have time slots available from 9am through to 6.00pm, Monday to Sunday so that families can pick what will best fit their schedule. Once daylight savings begins on October 4th we will offer timeslots through to 7pm.
Melbourne’s weather
In October the weather has an average maximum of around 19 degrees. There is usually rain 1-2 days per week. If rain or severe weather is forecast we will text you to cancel the outdoor training session. You will automatically switch to a “zoom” online training session for that day.
Have your child dress appropriately for the weather, including sunscreen as the weather warms up.
We will require a credit card on file, but will not process the payment until after the lesson has occurred to ensure you are not charged for sessions we cancel due to inclement weather or you cancel due to cold or flu symptoms, or Covid -19 related precautions. ** if you have any credits on file or have purchased a gift voucher that you would like to use, please contact the office to arrange to use these towards your outdoor classes.
Bookings:
Bookings requests should be made online by completing this form.
Sincerely Yours,
Christy Hemphill
Director
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